I had a plan

A Thai life story

I have met people who make plans and stick to them. My landlord in Sri Lanka made a plan to move his family to Canada. He flew to Vancouver and bought a condo. His wife and son went first. She got a job at a Montessori school, and the son enrolled in high school. She applied for Permanent Residence for her and the son and they got it. All according to plan. My younger brother is like that. Makes a plan, sticks to it.

For me, the Yiddish proverb applies, “When God wants a laugh, she lets us plan”. Take today for example.

I had a plan.

The plan was, finish my kitchen story for Medium, do a little admin work, go to the gym and spend some time working on my Thai. After that, if it wasn’t too late, I would go to the mall and check out the price of glasses for my new prescription.

And then…

I had just finished revising my Medium story when I got an email asking if I could edit a 12,000-word article on pastoralism in Kenya within the next six hours. Of course I said of course I will. They’re a good client and my philosophy is “do it now and get it done”. Much to my surprise, it was in pretty good shape, but it still took three hours.

Now I could go to the gym and work on my Thai.

On my way out of the yard, the builder informed me that he needed some PVC fittings to install the new water pipes. That’s important, so I thought, “I can stop at the little hardware store up the road, do a U-turn, and…